The School Play
by Shizuka Sen
Summary: Kurama's Englishdrama teacher assigns her students to read two plays: Romeo and Juliet, and Annie. Kurama fails to pay adequate attention and gets stuck with a part and his friends naturally find out. HILARITY ENSUES! Oneshot


The School Play

This is a one-shot created entirely by me – that is to say, Shizuka-chan, without the approval of Kurama or her other alter-egos (who didn't care anyway) – on May 13. I hope I remember everything. It started with me listening to "It's a Hard-Knock Life" while cleaning a bathroom (don't ask, please) and then telling my story to Pure Shikon and making up the rest as I went along. Just be happy. This is for humorous purposes.

_Advanced English_.

Kurama didn't mind the subject, and his acquaintance Kaitou loved it.

Except when their sensei announced, "We've had a blunder, everyone. I'm sorry."

Kurama, who had been staring out the window at the cherry trees, turned his attention back to the front. What kind of blunder? Surely the sensei hadn't told them the incorrect conjugations for the verb 'to be' back in the first year of middle school. (As Kurama thought this, "is-am-are-was-were" flashed through his head. He couldn't help it. It was reflexive.)

"In order to graduate," their sensei continued, "you have to have a bit of theater and drama. So, the staff and I came to the conclusion that since I, as your Advanced English teacher, have nearly taken you through the entire course, that it would be suitable if we combined the two subjects. So, I'm going to choose between two famous English plays. One is certainly familiar to you, Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_."

Kurama's mind screamed a silent "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" If the class did _Romeo and Juliet_, he was going to end up playing Romeo whether he liked it or not! (He could already tell there would be no hope: all the girls in the class were already sighing romantically.)

"The other one is an American musical called _Annie_," said their sensei. "Does anyone know anything about this play?"

Kaitou's hand shot into the air. He was naturally called on. Kaitou stood next to his desk and said, "As said, it is an American musical that is set in the 1930s, which was a period of depression in the United States. The president at that time was Herbert Hoover, and the play attacks the–"

"Thank you," the sensei interrupted. "But do you know the general plot?"

Kaitou sat down wordlessly.

"Um, anyone else?"

Silence.

"Minamino-kun?"

Kurama knew it. Anytime no one else knew the answer, the sensei asked him because he always knew the answer. But not this time, as he had no interest in American musicals. He stood and made the confession. "I fear I have no knowledge in this area, sensei."

The class gasped as one. The brilliant Minamino not knowing something was unheard of. Kurama sat down as everyone gaped.

"Well, that doesn't surprise me," said the sensei.

The class gasped again.

"I'm passing out the scripts of both plays now," said the teacher. "Get familiar with both and think about roles you'd like to play." The bell rang. "I'll see you tomorrow."

The entire class rushed out, including Kaitou. Kurama opened his backpack and took out the extra credit lab assignment he had agreed to do with the biology club.

As the Advanced English sensei walked out, Kurama suddenly had a flash of inspiration. "Sensei?" he called.

"Yes, what can I do for you, Minamino-kun?"

"Those two plays – everyone is familiar with _Romeo and Juliet_, are they not?"

"Of course," the sensei answered.

"So, I was only wondering if I could suggest we put on the other one, so we all learn something completely new," Kurama said, trying not to sound too enthusiastic about learning but also trying to appear completely innocent in his motives.

"I _was_ leaning toward that one, but we'll see," said the sensei.

"Thank you," said Kurama. The sensei left.

After the lab, Kurama was feeling slightly pessimistic, so he began to read _Romeo and Juliet_, figuring he might as well get to know the characters. He stopped at the third line of the prologue – "from ancient grudge break to new mutiny"? What kind of messed up English was that supposed to be? How could he translate _this_?

Kurama stayed up very late that night reading and trying to comprehend the strange language of English. Eventually, he realized it was Elizabethan English, but this didn't help him much. Why, oh why couldn't they just do a Japanese play? Oh, yes, this was the Advanced English teacher's idea. Dang.

The script for _Annie_ lay forgotten in the bottom of his book bag.

He would regret that.

Their English sensei was waiting for them when Kurama's class returned from gym for their last class of the day. She was holding many thick packets.

"This is the music for the play we're putting on. I've decided that we shall perform _Annie_."

Kurama suddenly remembered that the class had supposed to have read both scripts. Unfortunately, he had been up till five a.m. trying to translate Elizabethan English into regular Japanese. Oh, yes, he was the smartest in the class, indeed….

He had no idea what _Annie_ was about. Great. That meant his class would stick him with a part because he couldn't provide any alternatives.

"But," the sensei continued, "since there's only six girls in this class, I've decided to make the orphanage one for boys."

_There's an orphanage in this play_? Kurama thought, completely ignorant. He began flipping through the script. Playing this Rooster person might be fun. Wait – this Rooster person sang a song. He did _not_ want to sing.

And this was a musical. Brilliant.

Kurama thought that maybe, just maybe, he should start sleeping more.

"So, any volunteers or nominations?" the sensei said. "Then we can have a little try-out. Everyone will be involved, of course – in _acting_, I might add. This is a good chance to practice your English."

Kurama's newly formed plan of being a stage hand was shot down. He flipped to the beginning of the script, but before he could read anything, a girl stood up without waiting to be called on.

"So, all the girl orphans are boy orphans now, right?" the girl said. The sensei nodded and the girl continued happily, "Then Minamino-kun should be Annie! He even has red hair!" The rest of the girls squealed and emphatically agreed.

Oh, no. Kurama didn't even know who Annie was, but since the title of the musical was _Annie_, he figured he had just been nominated for the starring role.

_PERFECT_.

Kaitou, who was two rows over and three rows up, called out, "Yeah, Minamino's perfect! Have him be Annie!" He turned around a smirked at Kurama. Even though their relations were good now, Kurama didn't think he would pass up an opportunity to make the number-one test-scorer look a bit silly.

"Minamino-kun, can you sing?" the sensei asked. "Annie is in nearly all the songs and three of them are sung as solos by her – I mean, him. Okay, Annie's changed to Ani, right now."

"No, I can't sing at all," Kurama said quickly.

"Could you at least try?" the sensei requested.

"Minamino," said Kaitou, "if you don't sing, I'll corner you and use _these_." He held up a small bag of cosmetics.

"Very nice, Kaitou, where did you get them?" Kurama shot back, getting very annoyed. "They're obviously not working very well."

"_What_?" Kaitou said. "_I _don't use them, I just got them from my little sister for this purpose because everyone knows you're not going to sing anything unless you have good motivation. I considered kidnapping Urameshi again, but–"

"Kaitou-kun," their sensei said warningly. "Minamino-kun will sing if he wants to."

Kaitou mouthed, "The threat still stands!" The other boys in the class followed suit. Since Kurama sat at the back, the sensei couldn't tell they were mouthing anything.

"Oh, fine," said Kurama. He sang a very short lullaby as quietly as he could. It was one of the only songs he knew, and that was only because his mother had sung it when he had been very small.

"It's…it's…_beautiful_!" the girls cried as one.

"You're in now," Kaitou said.

"_Do it, do it, do it_!" the rest of the boys of the class chanted.

_The experts are right, peer pressure is a major problem in school these days_, Kurama thought miserably.

"We'll cosmetize you if you don't!" the boy who sat in front of him whispered.

The one sitting next to the other boy said, "You're in the biology club, right? You've got rare equipment, right? And it's glass, isn't it?"

Kurama hid himself behind his physics textbook in a vain attempt to get them to stop staring at him.

The first boy grabbed it out of his hands and flung it across the room, where the spine of the book tore in two.

"The physics…," Kurama moaned softly, thinking that it had been interesting for the three seconds of reading he had been doing. "Chapter nineteen, electric force fields, resistance…."

Kaitou called across the room in the chaos, "Hey, Shuichi – you know my tropical plants? I could lower the temperatures on them a bit if you'd like!"

The threat to the plants pushed Kurama over the edge. He had had enough. "Fine. I'll do it."

Calm was restored immediately.

"Good," said the sensei. "First practice is tonight at seven, right here in your regular classroom. We'll assign the rest of the parts then." As the sensei finished speaking, the bell rang. Kurama was out in a flash.

"That's weird," a girl said. "Where'd Minamino go?"

"Who cares?" said a boy. "But Kaitou, what was with the tropical plant thing?"

Kaitou shrugged a little, using a book to hide his smirk. This would be _fun_.

It was a quarter past six and Kurama sat at his desk, reading the script of _Annie_.

He was doomed.

Something rapped fast and hard on his window. Kurama looked outside and saw that rain was beginning to fall. He let in Hiei, who, as a fire youkai, hated rain. (He usually sought refuge in Kurama's room.)

As Hiei sat on the edge of Kurama's bed, Kurama said, "Hiei, I'm doomed."

Hiei only raised an eyebrow in reply.

"We're doing a play at school."

"I'm not interested," said Hiei.

"It's an American musical called _Annie_," Kurama said, not paying attention and sounding sorry for himself. "And I'm playing a girl."

Hiei stifled a snort of amusement. He silently willed the fox to dig himself a deeper hole.

Kurama graciously complied. "There's the first rehearsal tonight, and the performance is exactly a month away at seven o'clock, and I – Hiei?"

Kurama's window was wide open. Hiei was gone.

"You're a comfort," said Kurama, turning to pick up his phone, which had just begun to ring.

Yusuke opened the door to his apartment with a rude, "Whaddaya want?" without bothering to look who had knocked.

"Detective," Hiei said icily, "how does a camera and a video recorder work?"

"Huh?" said Yusuke.

"Tell me now," Hiei demanded.

"What are you doing here?" asked Yusuke.

"Kurama is playing a girl in some school thing exactly a month from today."

"I'm in," Yusuke said immediately. "_Blackmail, blackmail, here we come!_"

"Exactly, moron," said Hiei.

"Come on in," Yusuke said. Hiei walked behind Yusuke and the Spirit World detective dug through piles of junk. He finally found the camera and said, "Okay, you look through here and press the little button thingy, and then–"

_RIIIIIIIING_! The phone had a nasty habit of interrupting good blackmail schemes, dang it.

"Yo, wassup?" Yusuke answered, seeing as how Hiei already had his katana out ready to kill the device if need be.

"Yusuke…." Kurama's voice came through pitifully on the line.

"Yeah?"

"_Help_."

"Okay."

"I'm doomed."

"Gotcha. You're playing a girl in a play, right? First, you gotta–"

"When did I tell you that?" Kurama asked suspiciously.

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," said Yusuke, drawing out the "uh" for a full minute and a half.

"Yusuke," Kurama's voice said, obviously irked. "Who gave you that information? It had better not be Hiei."

Hiei smirked. "Don't tell him."

"Well, duh," Yusuke said.

"What?"

"Nothing, man. Ummmmmmmmm…." Yusuke thought while he said "um" and finally came up with an excuse. "Kaitou stopped by five minutes ago on the way to your practice and told me!"

"He did not!" Kurama insisted. "Kaitou called me five minutes ago from school to make sure I wouldn't be late!"

"Uh, dude, how do you know whether or not he was calling from there?" said Yusuke.

"Caller ID doesn't lie, Yusuke," said Kurama, sounding a bit mad now. "Get up to speed with technology, will you?"

"Geez, what are you, some computer expert?"

"Actually, I've been taking a course–"

"Yeah, yeah, great, fox-boy. So, gonna curl your hair for the play?"

"Where did you _really _hear about this from? It wasn't Kaitou!"

"Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," said Yusuke, making the "er" forty-five seconds long.

_Snip, snip_!

The phone went dead.

Hiei sheathed his katana.

"Dude, you cut my phone cord!" Yusuke yelled.

Hiei shrugged. "That stupid human contraption was irking me."

"Whatever," said Yusuke. "Okay, back to the camera. This is how you turn the flash on…."

ONE MONTH LATER, the play was ready to be performed.

Yusuke and Hiei were ready. Hiei had even agreed to let Kuwabara in on the joke. Together, they were completely prepared to blackmail Kurama: Yusuke had the video recorder, Hiei had the camera, and Kuwabara was the watchman. He was supposed to make sure Kurama didn't find out what Yusuke and Hiei were doing until it was too late.

The human punks and the fire demon sat in the back and went unnoticed. As the overture started, Yusuke pressed "Play" while Hiei looked through the camera lens.

Kurama came out on the stage with five other boys. They sat on beds and looked pitiful. Hiei snapped away.

But what blew them all away was when Kurama began to sing.

Their mouths formed tiny little "o"s.

Yusuke said, "Is that _him_? I mean…it actually sounds _good_."

"What the blazes is he saying?" Hiei said.

"Uh, hey guys, look up there," said Kuwabara. "There's super titles."

"Oh. Yeah. Gotcha," said Yusuke.

Hiei began reading the Japanese translation above the screen. It made him want to wretch, it was so sappy. He decided to keep looking through the camera and pressing that little button as fast as he could.

Halfway through the play, Kurama, some guy who was dressed like a rich man, and a pretty girl walked off the stage. Three people came on: two girls and _Kaitou_.

Their mouths formed little "o"s again.

"Uh, am I the only one who forgot he was in Kurama's class?" Yusuke whispered.

The other two declined comment.

"EASY STREEEEEEEEEEEEEET!" Kaitou sang, sounding as villainous as possible. "ANI IS THE KEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!"

"You know, guys, I don't get this play," said Kuwabara. "I mean, the guy's name is Rooster. Who names their kid Rooster?"

"It's written by a human; of course it's stupid," Hiei said.

"Yeah, you're right – hey, what now?" Kuwabara said.

"Fool."

"Shrimp!"

"Imbecile."

"Hamster legs!"

"Guys, Kurama's back on," said Yusuke, pressing the "Record" button.

Hiei started the super-fast clicking again.

Fifteen minutes later, the play was at its climax. Kaitou was apparently trying to kidnap Kurama, but none of the three blackmailers knew why.

A voice behind them shouted, "YOU TWO DIMWITS, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

All three blackmailers jumped. Kaitou and Kurama looked out at the audience. (Hiei, Yusuke, and Kuwabara dived behind seats before the spotlight was flipped to the back.)

Standing there, in her full, ninety-year-old glory, was the spiritual teacher of Yusuke, Kaitou, and pretty much everybody else Kurama knew – _Genkai_.

"WHY ARE YOU PRETENDING TO BE HELPLESS LITTLE ORPHANS WHEN YOU'VE GOT WORK TO DO???" Genkai demanded.

"Kaitou," Kurama whispered, "did you blow off training with Genkai to come?"

"Um, yeah, sorry, Shuichi," Kaitou murmured back.

"You…_fool_…."

"Um, let's discuss this later," Kaitou suggested under his breath.

"NO, WE WILL _NOT_ DISCUSS THIS LATER!" Genkai said. The audience was starting to wonder what was going on.

"That woman's hearing is too good," muttered Kaitou.

"Agreed," Kurama whispered.

Their sensei came onto the stage. "Um, security?"

Black-uniformed men attempted to tackle Genkai.

Needless to say, she kicked their butts with a round of karate chops.

Then, after yelling, "YOU IMBECILES!" she stalked out.

"Oh-kay," said the sensei. "I'm very sorry for that interruption, ladies and gentlemen – I can assure you that it was _not_ planned. On with the show!"

Kurama thought, _Thank goodness Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei didn't see that. I'll never hear the end of it from Kaitou, though. Never._

Around fifteen minutes after the interesting interruption, the show ended. Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei traipsed into the reception room, where all the actors were being enthusiastically congratulated by everyone. Kuwabara got distracted by the juice and cookies, and Yusuke followed him over to the table.

This left Hiei clutching the digital camera, watching Kurama escape from the throng of people. Kurama's eyes scanned the crowd and came to rest on, yes, Hiei himself.

Kurama's eyes widened and he zipped over faster than Hiei thought the fox could run.

"What," Kurama hissed, "are you _doing_ here?"

Hiei held up the camera wordlessly.

"Blackmail," Kurama concluded. "Lovely." He sounded murderous and obviously thought it was not lovely at all.

"Shuichi," a woman who looked in her early forties said, putting a hand on Kurama's shoulder. "I've been looking for you."

"Kaasan!" Kurama said, not expecting his mother to come up behind him. Still, he kept his gaze on Hiei, who he knew would try and escape if he did not watch. "Do you see that over there?" He pointed to where Kaitou was singing "Easy Street" again.

As his mother looked at Kaitou making a fool of himself, Kurama noticed that Hiei looked too. Kurama took the opportunity to snatch the camera from his hands.

He watched, growing ever more angry as he saw the play being played backwards in slow motion on the files of the digital camera. While his mother was still looking the other way, Kurama destroyed it by shooting plants through the memory chip.

Now Hiei was the one looking murderous. But suddenly, when Kurama smiled a bit, he smirked as well.

Kurama knew that was not good.

"I was the one who told the detective and the moron," said Hiei.

"I figured as much."

"And they came with me."

Kurama paled. "And?"

"The detective has the entire thing."

"On?"

"_Video_."

Kurama went into a silent scream.

His mother looked back at him, concerned. "Are you all right, Shuichi?"

"Kaasan…um…could I meet you back here in around five minutes? Thanks," said Kurama, not waiting for his mother to answer.

He dragged Hiei out by the hair into the hallway.

"You mean to tell me," Kurama said, his voice so quiet that even Hiei could barely hear, "that Yusuke has the _entire play_ on a video camera?"

Hiei thought of shrugging, or of saying "Hn," but then decided for a more verbose way to put it. "Hell, yes."

Kurama went pale. "You're…you're not going to put that on the Internet, are you?"

"The what?" said Hiei.

"Good," Kurama said.

"_Detective_," Hiei called.

"What now?" Yusuke demanded. He saw Kurama and gulped. "Hey, man."

Kurama death-glared him.

"What is this Internet?" Hiei asked Yusuke. "Whatever it is, put the video on it."

"Will do!" Yusuke said, running back to the refreshments table.

"Hiei…," Kurama said. "I'm doomed."

Hiei only smirked. "Stupid fox."

Kurama began to count down. "Ten, nine, eight, seven…."

Hiei decided to take advantage of the fox's attempt to calm himself.

He ran.

THE END!

So, did poor Kurama's role in the play ever get posted on the Internet? That's for _you_ to decide! But I just wrote this to be funny and I hope you liked it.

ARIGATOU GOZAIMASHITA!


End file.
